1. Technical Field The present invention relates to a mobile terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile terminal including a plurality of display units.
2. Background Art
Currently, display panels of mobile devices are advancing in their enlargement of display screens and higher resolution because of the demands to increase the capacity of display data and development of manufacturing techniques. In mobile telephone terminals, display panels of maximum sizes are used within a range that can be stored in terminal cases. Thus, mobile telephone terminals are designed so as to arrange the structures inside the terminals as close as possible and minimize clearances as much as possible. However, it will be required to further enlarge displays of mobile telephone terminals and to include display panels having larger display areas.
On the other hand, the size of a display panel included in a mobile telephone terminal has a trade-off relation with portability of the terminal. Thus, when the size of the display panel is increased, the size of the terminal becomes inevitably larger. In summary, the portability of the mobile telephone terminal is reduced. Accordingly, although it is desired to enlarge the size of the display without reducing portability, it is difficult to achieve both of the portability and enlargement of the screen by one display panel. In order to overcome this situation, techniques to enlarge the display area by displaying one image using a plurality of display panels have been developed.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-5414 discloses a multi-display apparatus including a plurality of inclined films and a transparent member on display surfaces of two flat display panels. By proving the transparent member between the plurality of inclined films, the paths of display light passing through the transparent members are directed to the direction of a border between the flat display panels. Accordingly, the display light around the border is radiated on the border, which makes it possible to prevent the display area from being separated by the border at the time of the display.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-350428 discloses a display apparatus including a lens array and a deflection element on the side of display surfaces of two LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays) arranged with a gap therebetween. The lens array converts display light of one LCD into parallel light. Then, the deflection element deflects the parallel light in the direction of the other LCD. Accordingly, the gap between the two LCDs is not displayed, whereby one continuous image is displayed by the two LCDs.
However, the multi-display apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-5414 includes a plurality of inclined films on the side of the front surface of the screen. Accordingly, there is a problem that a stripe or grid-like pattern is displayed on the display area because of the existence of the inclined films, and the image displayed on the display area is differently seen.
Further, the display apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-350428 is required to input the parallel light to the deflection element. Accordingly, it is required to separately provide a lens array to convert the display light of the LCD into the parallel light, and the thickness of the display apparatus as a whole increases. In short, portability is reduced.
The present invention has been made in order to solve such problems, and aims to provide a mobile terminal which is capable of achieving large screen display while maintaining image quality and portability.